Day: March 26, 2012

Home Log (2012-03-26)

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The work at the new library is finally becoming routine. The funny thing is that I often end up doing layout for flyers announcing the library’s events and activities! However the full schedule and the long commuting (nearly three hours per day!) are really taking their toll: on my first day off this week-end I slept twelve hours! I am not getting any younger, document.write(“”); I guess.

I finally got and watched the dvd of Ken Burns’ documentary on Mark Twain. Quite an interesting character. I’ll never get tired of watching Burns’ documentaries: he’s always very interesting and I am glad that I still have many of his works to watch.

The unusually warm temperature of last week made all the snow disappear but the melting also created lots of humidity in the basement. Consequently, in the last couple of weeks, I’ve experienced an invasion of woodlouse (in french: cloportes). Fortunately, those small creatures (Arthropodes are not insects but crustaceans) are inoffensive but, still, it’s rather annoying. I’ll really have to take care of this humidity problem. Those cute little things are definitely the inspiration behind the Ohmu in Miyazaki’s Nausicaä of The Valley of the Wind, so I can’t really hate them.

I wrote a little but not as much as I wanted (as usual, I came back from work too tired to do much). I talked (in french) about the fact that local libraries are now lending ebooks. I wrote (again, in french) about the fact that many of my assistant librarian collegues are often over-qualified and introduced two of them who are artists and are exposing their work in art galeries. Finally, I shared my weekly news scrapbooking and a funny anecdote brought me to reflect on freedom of religion.

I also kept reading from my old notebooks (some dating as far as the 70s) and I am still amazed (okay, it is not that good but it is nevertheless quite interesting). I really must use some of those texts here…

However, what I would have really liked to do is share comments about movies and books. That’s the purpose of this cultural blog after all. I keep borrowing books and dvds from the library or receiving them from publishers and I am getting quite behind in commenting them. Spring and warmer weather seems to give me a little more energy so I’ll definitely increase my writing output in the coming weeks and months (and I’ll take some day off to work on it).

Reflection on freedom of religion

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Earlier this week, document.write(“”); as I was about to leave for work in the morning, the door bell rang. Opening the door, I discovered an old couple of missionaries (something like the Jehovah’s witnesses) who were speaking only italian! Fortunately, I could understand most of what the old lady was saying. She wanted to give me some literatura about the life of Gesù. What makes the anecdote funny is that they seemed as puzzled as me by the fact that I couldn’t (or rather wouldn’t) speak italian. I must admit that there are lots of italians in my neighborhood and the previous owner of the house was italian, so I guess they had my address listed as “one of their own”.

This funny anecdote brought me to reflect on the principle of freedom of religion. Hit the jump the read more:

It is already bad that they wake you up on a saturday or sunday morning (when you are distributing a magazine titled “Wake-up” —“Réveillez-vous!” in french; in english it is “Awake!”—you KNOW you are waking people up!), but what those people don’t realize is that by peddling their religion door to door they are violating section two of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as well as Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (and maybe the First Amendment to the United States Constitution: the Free Exercise Clause prohibits government from impeding the free exercise of religion but its not clear to me if it applies to individuals) which all guarantee the principle of Freedom of religion.

Clearly the right of an individual ends where the right of another begins: they have the right to practise their religion as long as they don’t infrige on my own rights. When they are trying to talk to me about their religion, handling their flyers, they are clearly thinking that my religion is not as good as theirs and therefore disregard and overstep on my own right to freely believe whatever I want. I am entitled to my own belief and don’t want to discuss it with anyone.

I believe that religion (whatever it is) is personnal and should happens in only three places: my head, my temple and my home. In this regard, to push it a little further, I find people displaying physical representation of their belief (necklaces, hats, wall decoration, urges to pray or constantly read into their sacred Book, etc.) to be annoying and distasteful. That’s my humble belief and you don’t have to agree or share any of it.